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In my article “Why Time Magazine Has It Wrong”, I touched on the basic recommendations for cardiovascular, and resistance exercise. However, that does not actually answer the question of how much you (specifically) should exercise. A good trainer will use your health status, goals, and any other contributing information to determine the program frequency, intensity, time, and type of activity, or more easily remembered as F.I.T.T.

Given you are healthy (no chronic conditions, free of injury), think about your goal(s). The goal will either fall into the avoidance of disease, fitness, or performance category. So here is a general breakdown: ​ (click below to read more)

Avoidance of Disease:

Frequency of exercise is 5 days per week

Intensity is of exercise is moderate

Moderate cardio (zone 1 or 2), is an intensity that you can perform and still carry on a conversation

Time spent is approximately 30 minutes a day

Type of exercise

Resistance- two session per week of each major muscle group, 8-12 reps, 15 or more repetitions with persons of 65 years of age and above, or frailty

Cardio- an example would be walking or other cardio activity where you’re moving at a pace where your heart rate is increasing but not so hard that you can’t hold a conversation

Fitness/Weight Loss:

Frequency of exercise is 3 to 4 days per week

Intensity of exercise is mildly difficult to difficult

Difficult or vigorous cardio for example can be gauged by having difficulty speaking while performing the workout. This is called the talk test.

Cardio (20+ minutes), examples could be jogging or other vigorous type exercise that becomes intense enough as to make it difficult to hold a conversation (zone 3)

Performance:

Frequency of exercise 7 days per week

Intensity of exercise is difficult or very difficult (depending on periodization)

Time spent per day on exercise will range but can be upwards of 2 hours per day

Type of exercise is solely dependent on the sport or event you’re training for

If your goal is fitness you do not want to start working out 3-4 times a week at a difficult intensity. While a program should be tailored to the person, beginning at the Avoidance of Disease intensity for someone who is just beginning may be most appropriate. This will provide the the person with some conditioning prior to moving into a difficult intensity training regimen.

Allows the muscles to condition also reducing the risk of muscle tear, pull

Helps soreness of muscles to be more manageable

Allows you to be more focused on form and less on shear performance

As we age conditioning becomes increasingly more important. When you were 20 years old perhaps you could not exercise for a year, and just jump into a high intensity program, however, as we age the risk of injury climbs dramatically.